knowledge of, a certain obscure peer lately known in England by the
name of Lord Brougham; seeing that I regard with some admiration
and affection another obscure peer wholly unknown in literary
circles, called Lord Lytton; seeing also that I have had for some
years some slight admiration of the extraordinary judicial
properties and amazingly acute mind of a certain Lord Chief Justice
popularly known by the name of Cockburn; and also seeing that there
is no man in England whom I respect more in his public capacity,
whom I love more in his private capacity, or from whom I have
received more remarkable proofs of his honour and love of
literature than another obscure nobleman called Lord Russell;
taking these circumstances into consideration, I was rather amazed
by my noble friend’s accusation. When I asked him, on his sitting
down, what amazing devil possessed him to make this charge, he
replied that he had never forgotten the days of Lord Verisopht.
Then, ladies and gentlemen, I understood it all. Because it is a
remarkable fact that in the days when that depreciative and
profoundly unnatural character was invented there was no Lord
Houghton in the House of Lords. And there was in the House of
Commons a rather indifferent member called Richard Monckton Milnes.
Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude, for the present, I close with
the other charge of my noble friend, and here I am more serious,
and I may be allowed perhaps to express my seriousness in half a
dozen plain words. When I first took literature as my profession
in England, I calmly resolved within myself that, whether I
succeeded or whether I failed, literature should be my sole
profession. It appeared to me at that time that it was not so well
understood in England as it was in other countries that literature
was a dignified profession, by which any man might stand or fall.
I made a compact with myself that in my person literature should
stand, and by itself, of itself, and for itself; and there is no
consideration on earth which would induce me to break that bargain.
Ladies and gentlemen, finally allow me to thank you for your great
kindness, and for the touching earnestness with which you have
drunk my health. I should have thanked you with all my heart if it
had not so unfortunately happened that, for many sufficient
reasons, I lost my heart at between half-past six and half-past
seven to-night.
SPEECH: THE OXFORD AND HARVARD BOAT RACE. SYDENHAM, AUGUST 30,
1869.
Page 87
Dickens, Charles – Speeches, Literary & Social
[The International University Boat Race having taken place on
August 27, the London Rowing Club invited the Crews to a Dinner at
the Crystal Palace on the following Monday. The dinner was
followed by a grand display of pyrotechnics. Mr. Dickens, in
proposing the health of the Crews, made the following speech:]
GENTLEMEN, flushed with fireworks, I can warrant myself to you as
about to imitate those gorgeous illusions by making a brief spirt
and then dying out. And, first of all, as an invited visitor of
the London Rowing Club on this most interesting occasion, I will
beg, in the name of the other invited visitors present – always
excepting the distinguished guests who are the cause of our meeting
– to thank the president for the modesty and the courtesy with
which he has deputed to one of us the most agreeable part of his
evening’s duty. It is the more graceful in him to do this because
he can hardly fail to see that he might very easily do it himself,
as this is a case of all others in which it is according to good
taste and the very principles of things that the great social vice,
speech-making, should hide it diminished head before the great
social virtue action. However, there is an ancient story of a lady
who threw her glove into an arena full of wild beasts to tempt her
attendant lover to climb down and reclaim it. The lover, rightly
inferring from the action the worth of the lady, risked his life
for the glove, and then threw it rightly in her face as a token of